MOBILE, Ala. -- For years, Daron Odell Jones presided over a cocaine empire that supplied hundreds of kilograms of dope to the Mobile area and had ties to one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels.

Daron Odell Jones
... gets 13 years for drug conspiracy.

For the next 12 years, he will preside over a prison cell.

Mobile-based Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Butler Jr. today handed down a 13-year sentence -- Jones will get credit for the year he has spent in jail -- and ordered him to spend 10 years on supervised release after he gets out. Butler also ordered the defendant to pay $1 million beyond the money and assets he already has forfeited.

Butler imposed an eight-year prison term on Jones' cousin, Hersie Jones Jr., who served as a courier to the Houston-based drug operation.

Daron Jones' 13-year sentence was less than half the 30-year minimum he faced under advisory guidelines. Prosecutors asked for a sentencing break because of the information Jones has provided about the dealers who bought his cocaine, the couriers who delivered it, the suppliers where he got the drugs and his "money man."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Griffin provided Butler with a list of 18 people that Jones implicated, including five suppliers who sat above him on the drug chain. Jones also provided information about a fugitive wanted by authorities in Delaware, she said.

"It provides the government with substantially useful information," Butler said.